Quotation Marks Setting Off Specific Words Or Terms

Quotation marks can occasionally be used for emphasis, but only when quoting a single word which someone else used. Usually, this implies that the author doesn’t agree with the use of the term.

He said he was “working”; it looked to me like he was procrastinating.

You call this filthy room “clean”?!

As with titles, the rules for using quotation marks for emphasis have changed since people started doing all the writing on computers. If a word needs to be emphasized but is not being quoted, you should put it in italics. If you’re writing by hand or using a typewriter, you can use quotation marks for emphasis, to separate a certain word from the rest of the sentence.

“They’re”, “their”, and “there” are easily confused as they’re homophones.

“Cool” can refer to temperature, or it can mean something is good; “sweet” is also used as slang to mean “good”.